EYE EYE/ We're Automatic (Poems in Progress)

"The aim of idealogies of ethnicity, nationality, religion and gender is to remove the sense of one's own individual limitions and failure as a human being and to replace the "I" by a "we" - Charles Simic

EYE EYE

I...
I... I
I’m... I
I’m trying
I'm trying not to say “I” so much

it’s no way to start a poem.

but
I...
I... I
I... I need
I need to start somewhere.

A We Poem

We’re better at breaking things than we are at juggling

We wear costumes better than ourselves
We pretend we’re all alike
We fight

We go home with all the stupid things we said that day
We lock ourselves away
We punch walls
We go mad because it proves we’re capable of love
We see the world like a lonely place
We dream in other people’s houses

We have earthquakes inside us
We see rainbows while they’re happening
We take chemicals and go to carnivals
We’re afraid of clowns
We’re afraid of flying but we wish we could
We’re afraid of going missing we’re not afraid of being missed
We’re afraid of smiling at strangers
We’re afraid of bombs on train tracks
We’re afraid of aeroplanes becoming fireworks
We’re afraid of depression
We’re afraid of expanding our minds when happiness is a tunnel vision

We want to look for people like us and we want to find them in love
We want more than life and the time it lasts
We want safety
We want people to be honest with us so we can be honest with people
We want diamonds in our mirrors
We want warm deathbeds and summer rain
We want to know if silence exists
We want to cut down cities and build rainforests
We want cycle paths, quiet parks and fast lanes on motorways

We want sharp brakes, steep slopes and no hands on handlebars
We smell like dead grass and featherbeds
We smell like heavy traffic and Oregano Mountains
like fluoride and drinking fountains

We smell like surgery

We’re arrowheads with neck pain
We’re hearts with headaches
We’re the weather in our dreams
We’re sea water in aquariums
We’re blind and photogenic
We’re deaf in the sound of sleep.